Recollections of… my first job in New Zealand

We drove deeper into the country on winding rural roads with no streetlights, houses or buildings in sight. After about an hour we turned into a steep driveway heading down into a gully. The Land Rover careered down the bumpy farm track and came to a lurching halt outside a desolate brick farmhouse. A scruffy guy with a long beard came out and beckoned me inside. Again, no-one offered to give me a hand with my luggage. The driver didn’t say a word to Tom or me, but took off again at great speed.

Tom showed me to the shearer’s quarters - basically just a tin shed out the back and after I’d finished unloading my gear, asked, “Do you like plonk?”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“All the Dalmatian people in Auckland make it and I’ve got a few jars.”

Plonk turned out to be wine, and a pretty bad one at that, so after a couple of glasses, I turned in for the night, tired, fed-up and damned hungry.

As Tom cooked breakfast at seven o’clock the next morning, I thought to myself, ‘Where’s Mrs Melling?’ Tom told me that the place was still in a bit of a mess as he’d just come out of Mt Eden and didn’t have a wife. As I’d just arrived in New Zealand and had never heard of Mt Eden, I didn’t think anything of it.

At hay-making time, Tom and I stopped work at midday and swam in the river or stock pond, which I couldn’t imagine happening back in England. However, on the downside, after our six o’clock tea we went back to work until nine or ten o’clock. Tom told me, “Don’t worry Dave, in New Zealand we don’t pay overtime but we do pay bonuses.” I asked for details of these bonuses a few times, but Tom said they varied too much to explain.

One of my jobs was fencing out the back of the farm which is where I met one of Tom’s neighbours. “How do you get on with Tom?” the neighbour asked.

“Alright I guess, why’s that?”

“Well, you know he’s just come out of Mt Eden?”

“Yes, he mentioned that. Where is Mt Eden exactly?”

“It’s the prison up in Auckland mate! Tom and his brother were caught trying to castrate a man at the Greytown Races and they both got two years!”

I went to bed that night with my door firmly closed and a chair up against it!

After a year I’d saved enough money to move on, so after being paid-off, I asked Tom about my bonus. He stopped and thought for a moment, disappeared into the house and came out holding a pair of slippers. “Here’s your bonus, Dave!” he said and off he went, back inside.

About the author:

Born in England in 1936, David (Dave) Perrett completed his National Service with the Royal Army Veterinary Corps and served as a dog tracker in Kenya with the 3’ Kings African Rifles during the Mau Mau Uprising. In New Zealand he had a long career with the Department of Agriculture. David passed away suddenly in August 2021. This extract from his book Adventures of a Wiltshire Moonraker, has been reprinted with permission from his family.